Soldiers and police had to force back crowds of Suharto supporters to allow the ambulance with his body to leave the hospital on his way to his home in central Jakarta, before it is taken to Solo in central Java for the funeral.

The government has announced a week of national mourning.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono led a televised prayer.

"I invite all the people of Indonesia to pray that may the deceased's good deeds and dedication to the nation be accepted by Allah the almighty," he said.

"Mr Suharto has done a great service to the nation."

Suharto was rushed to hospital on 4 January suffering from various heart, lung and kidney problems.

After all, the bloodshed which accompanied his rise to power, after a mysterious coup attempt in 1965 which he blamed on Indonesia's then-powerful Communist Party, was on a scale matched only in Cambodia in this region, he says.

Within the space of a few months at least half a million people were slaughtered in anti-communist pogroms that, at the very least, Suharto and the military tacitly encouraged says our correspondent.

The trauma of that period scars Indonesia to this day, and was a key tool in Suharto's armoury.

After his death was announced, Suharto's eldest daughter, Siti Hariyanti Rukmana, told reporters: "We ask that if he had any faults, please forgive them... may he be absolved of all his mistakes."